P 45
Transition to Jamnagar Refinery Project -1995
As the federal govt. eased the condition for Pvt. sector entrepreneurs to launch petroleum refining in India, Reliance was the first player to take that call. Sh.Dhirubhai being a dreamer who always thought BIG, commissioned a team to ensure the central Govt. approval is sought for putting a refinery at Motikavadi, near Padana! It took nearly three years for that team to succeed in overcoming all obstructions and legal tangle etc. DHA 's preference to locate the plant there, has some back ground implied reasons. The village Padana being Mrs Kokila Behen's (Mrs.DHA)native village, he wanted this factory to be Industrial Taj Mahal of India!! Of course, on date, it has beaten his expectations and it is the world Largest Refining&PetroChemical complex , processing 66MMT/Annum Crude processing and proving the term in Hydrocarbon Industry parlour -Bottom of Barrel processing!
Let us see what was my role &responsibility in fulfilling that dream ! In Jan.'95, though I was still looking after the finishing requirements of Hazira Ph2 OSBL, I have been dragged as one of the first few. On Jan.30th, a chartered aircraft was arranged to visit Jamnagar plant site (Group of 14 members) to go around the thorny bush area and get an idea of the acquired land for putting a refinery. That was a different experience walking around in thorny bushes. To take possession of the land area, M/S SC Malhotra, Umesh Bhandari &Lakshminarayan were the first to be stationed there.
In March itself, I was asked to hand over the remnants of Hazira task to Sh Sekhar Kale and transferred to Jamnagar Refinery project , shifted the office from Vakola to Ballard estate.
Here I have to bring out one important incident what I came across right in the beginning.. Company hired Mr M Subramaniam of ex L&T general manager , as construction manager for Jamnagar project execution. He, out of his enthusiasm and pro-active thinking wanted to seek the Marine tank farm Crude tanks layout clearance from CCE department. He picked up some design drawings of M/S CBI(Chicago Bridge& Iron), that time world famous tank contractors for 1,60, 000 M3 floating roof tanks for crude storage and went directly to Nagpur. As written earlier, by that time Dr H Mukherjee retired and Sh Ghoshal was in-charge of the department. On reaching Nagpur, MSR met 4 officers ( M/S Bhandopadhyay, MA, Bharadwaj &Ghoshal himself). As he was not known to the department, every one queried him- "What happened to AR and this department recognizes him only as Reliance representative. Ask him to meet us for discussions/approval." MSR got really wounded and on reaching Bombay , he phoned me next morning. He , being a Tamilian used all Tamil slangs and gave me gally. He questioned me asking "what Jadu you have done to that department and every one is only talking about you; even though I am GM&above your rank in company, how come they have refused? I am going to complain to Sh MDA about you". I responded politely, you should have hinted me before going to Nagpur, but now it is too late. You know, he did complain to MDA. Can anyone guess, what was the reaction/response&instructions to him on that? Contd.....
Key Aspects :- Incident analysis, Initiative, Motivation, Opportunity, Proactive approach, Recognition, Responsible Transfer
Transition to Jamnagar Refinery Project -1995
As the federal govt. eased the condition for Pvt. sector entrepreneurs to launch petroleum refining in India, Reliance was the first player to take that call. Sh.Dhirubhai being a dreamer who always thought BIG, commissioned a team to ensure the central Govt. approval is sought for putting a refinery at Motikavadi, near Padana! It took nearly three years for that team to succeed in overcoming all obstructions and legal tangle etc. DHA 's preference to locate the plant there, has some back ground implied reasons. The village Padana being Mrs Kokila Behen's (Mrs.DHA)native village, he wanted this factory to be Industrial Taj Mahal of India!! Of course, on date, it has beaten his expectations and it is the world Largest Refining&PetroChemical complex , processing 66MMT/Annum Crude processing and proving the term in Hydrocarbon Industry parlour -Bottom of Barrel processing!
Let us see what was my role &responsibility in fulfilling that dream ! In Jan.'95, though I was still looking after the finishing requirements of Hazira Ph2 OSBL, I have been dragged as one of the first few. On Jan.30th, a chartered aircraft was arranged to visit Jamnagar plant site (Group of 14 members) to go around the thorny bush area and get an idea of the acquired land for putting a refinery. That was a different experience walking around in thorny bushes. To take possession of the land area, M/S SC Malhotra, Umesh Bhandari &Lakshminarayan were the first to be stationed there.
In March itself, I was asked to hand over the remnants of Hazira task to Sh Sekhar Kale and transferred to Jamnagar Refinery project , shifted the office from Vakola to Ballard estate.
Here I have to bring out one important incident what I came across right in the beginning.. Company hired Mr M Subramaniam of ex L&T general manager , as construction manager for Jamnagar project execution. He, out of his enthusiasm and pro-active thinking wanted to seek the Marine tank farm Crude tanks layout clearance from CCE department. He picked up some design drawings of M/S CBI(Chicago Bridge& Iron), that time world famous tank contractors for 1,60, 000 M3 floating roof tanks for crude storage and went directly to Nagpur. As written earlier, by that time Dr H Mukherjee retired and Sh Ghoshal was in-charge of the department. On reaching Nagpur, MSR met 4 officers ( M/S Bhandopadhyay, MA, Bharadwaj &Ghoshal himself). As he was not known to the department, every one queried him- "What happened to AR and this department recognizes him only as Reliance representative. Ask him to meet us for discussions/approval." MSR got really wounded and on reaching Bombay , he phoned me next morning. He , being a Tamilian used all Tamil slangs and gave me gally. He questioned me asking "what Jadu you have done to that department and every one is only talking about you; even though I am GM&above your rank in company, how come they have refused? I am going to complain to Sh MDA about you". I responded politely, you should have hinted me before going to Nagpur, but now it is too late. You know, he did complain to MDA. Can anyone guess, what was the reaction/response&instructions to him on that? Contd.....
Key Aspects :- Incident analysis, Initiative, Motivation, Opportunity, Proactive approach, Recognition, Responsible Transfer
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